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American search engine Google is making its UK debut after replacing

Lycos as service provider for entertainment site Virgin Net.

Google (www.google.com), which is used by Netscape and the Washington

Post, is replacing Lycos. It uses PageRank techniques which determine the

relevancy of search results by analysing the number of web sites that

point to any page returned by a search, rather than just counting links.

It has spent up to three months creating a customised index with over five

million UK-specific pages to fulfil the contract with the leisure and

entertainment site.

Users of Virgin Net will be able to restrict search boundaries under two

headings: UK & Ireland and Worldwide. Results of any search are delivered

ranked by relevance.

Alex Dale, publisher of Virgin Net (www.virgin.net) said Lycos’ contract

was up but Virgin Net would continue to work with it: ”I chose Google

because the clarity of presentation and speed of search fitted in with the

image we want to project - it is clean and simple to use. For your

ordinary user, the relevance of a search really needs to be at the

top.

If you look for Cambridge, you get Cambridge in the Fens, not in the

US.”

Sergey Brin, president and co-founder of Google, said UK was the first

step of its expansion into Europe. He is currently talking to an Italian

company regarding a portal.